


Two Times Stardust

by Adenil



Series: Bruce Banner is Every Mark Ruffalo Character (Crossovers) [2]
Category: Iron Man - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Kids are Alright - Fandom
Genre: Avengers AU - Everyone has a body double, Family, Finding your place, M/M, Multi, The Avengers/The Kids are Alright crossover no one asked for, crossover fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone had their double. That person with the same face, same body, same everything down to the twists and turns in the ladders of their DNA. </p><p>Bruce just never expected to actually meet him.</p><p>_</p><p>Or, a tale about finding family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Times Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I can never get out of my head that all of Mark Ruffalo's characters are the same person. You do not actually need to watch The Kids are Alright to get this. Read the wiki article if you like.
> 
> Rated T, but it's a high T.
> 
> *

_If you want a family so much, go out and make one of your own._  
  
  


*

 

It was sort of comforting to know that out there in the big blue world was someone hewn from the same stardust as you.

 

Everyone had their double. That person with the same face, same body, same everything down to the twists and turns in the ladders of their DNA. It wasn’t like you were drawn together. There was no inexorable pull. No in-born desire to see the other. You didn’t hurt when they hurt; you didn’t feel what they felt. You didn’t desire what they desired. But they were there. Somewhere there was a person with your face, talking to people with your voice, living another life that you could have had.

 

Bruce took comfort in that most nights.

 

He liked to close his eyes at night and imagine what the other him was like. Was he successful? Did he have a family? Had he passed on their shared genetic material? Did he feel, as Bruce felt, that their skin didn’t fit quite right, that their hands were too big, legs too impractical to walk?

 

He wondered if there was a monster hidden inside the other, too.

 

Bruce would think about those things as he held on to Tony for dear life, as though he might slip through his fingers at a moment’s notice. He would run his hands over Tony’s warm skin, trace the circle of his arc reactor, touch the featherings of hair here and there, and wonder. Was the other as happy as he was?

 

He just never expected to actually meet him.

 

*

 

Some days he just needed to escape Stark Tower.

 

When the press of being a super hero (albeit an undercover one) was too much. When Thor grew too loud. When Steve was too despondent. When Clint and Natasha alternated too quickly between full of life and empty of it. When Tony buried himself too quickly and too deep in metal and twists and turns. When he hated himself too much.

 

On those days, he ran.

 

He wanted to run forever. He wanted to feel the earth turn beneath his feet. He wanted to alternate between the ice of Greenland, the damp of Brazil, and the dry of Iran. He wanted to duck and hide and take cover. He wanted to just keep putting one foot in front of the other until it all was a distant memory. On the days when it was the worst he actually drew up flight plans. He’d even bought tickets, once.

 

When it was particularly bad, he went for coffee down the street.

 

It wasn’t really far enough. Not _really_. He couldn’t taste unfamiliar air. His ears did not ache from foreign sounds. But it was far enough that he could imagine he was running.

 

He picked a new place each time. This coffee shop was cool and calming. Most patrons had more dreadlocks than money, spending their time discussing how to change the world in tiny, powerful micro transactions. Bruce inhaled the heady aroma of coffee beans and ordered the simplest thing on the menu.

 

Then, Bruce sat. He waited for his drink and thumbed through his tablet but didn’t really see it. He hardly glanced up when the waitress set his drink by his elbow, but when he raised it to his mouth and the pungent stench of cinnamon hit him he frowned.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said pleasantly. “This isn’t what I ordered.”

 

The waitress was already halfway gone, but she turned around. “Are you sure?” She glanced at a ticket in her hand. “Cinnamon spice and chai latte, right?”

 

“I just had black coffee.”

 

She looked confused, but picked up the cup. She glanced around the room and her face seemed to soften. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see your other there.”

 

Bruce watched her as she sashayed away with the mug, and placed it in front of the man with his face.

 

He knew that he should just leave. The other hadn’t noticed him yet, didn’t glance up from his coffee and newspaper. He should have left right then and there and never brought his other into the fold of world-ending superheroism. He’d seen him; that should have been enough. It was more than most people got.

 

Instead, Bruce stood up. He walked over. He sat in front of his other.

 

Of course, neither of them was really _other_. They were both the same. Both had come into existence in the same instant. Neither was the original; neither was the copy. Both simply were. Bruce wondered if that was what the other man was thinking, when he glanced up with wide eyes framed by short black hair.

 

They sat there for a long moment, staring back and forth. Bruce entertained the idea of leaving again. He hadn’t said anything yet. Nothing that could give away who he was. But when the waitress returned with a smile and sat his coffee by his side, the other startled into action.

 

“Never actually expected to meet you.”

 

Bruce nodded a little to himself. “Never actually expected to be met.”

 

“Who…” The other watched him for a moment. Bruce took a drink of his coffee, and the other mirrored him like he was playing catch-up.

 

“My name is Bruce,” he said when he couldn’t take it anymore.

 

“Paul.”

 

And that was it. A certain tension seemed to ooze out of the air as they spoke. Paul seemed to be testing the waters, testing him. Bruce tested back. He was wary, uncertain, afraid of revealing too much. He had no idea who his other was. He could have been a villain, another monster, for all he knew.

 

But Paul was friendly. As their mugs emptied and night began to fall upon the coffee shop, Paul smiled over at him.

 

“I need to go,” he said after a while. “I’ve got a restaurant to run.”

 

Bruce nodded and rose. Paul mirrored him, and it was disconcerting. They stood there hovering for a moment before Paul stuck out his hand. Bruce accepted it with aplomb and noted that their hands fit perfectly together.

 

“Come visit me sometime.” Paul rattled off the name of an organic restaurant, listing the address, and Bruce was surprised when he realized that he’d heard of it. “Just let them know you aren’t me.” Paul gave a little half smile.

 

Bruce dropped his hand. “You can visit me as well,” he found himself saying. “I, ah. I live at the Stark Tower.”

 

If Paul was surprised, he didn’t show it. He gave Bruce a little wave over his shoulder and disappeared into the night. Bruce found himself standing still for a long moment, thinking, until the waitress appeared and began clearing away their dishes.

 

“Was that your first meeting?” she asked pleasantly.

 

“Yeah.” Bruce found he was wringing his hands together, and he dropped them. “Yeah. Thank you.”

 

She smiled up at him. “It wasn’t me. You’re lucky you got to meet him.”

 

As she walked away, Bruce considered. He wasn’t used to being lucky.

 

*

 

Truth was, he’d been growing luckier. Maybe someday it would run out.

 

“Dude, you are seriously depressing me.”

 

Bruce glanced over at where Lars was madly pressing buttons on the screen of his phone. Lars didn’t even look up at him. Bruce had that moment—that split second where he thought he was looking at Tony—but he shook it off. “Well, this is my living room, so…”

 

Lars scoffed. “Aren’t you supposed to be at some super hero thing?”

 

Bruce never really _mistook_ Lars for Tony. The other man was simply too full of himself, too self-absorbed and inattentive—and okay. Those were all traits that Tony had in abundance, but when Tony’s other exhibited them they felt _off_. Wrong. Because Lars had never had any goals or ambitions beyond leeching as much off Tony as he could and pretending to be famous when Tony was too tired to go out.

 

“Still playing your game?”

 

“Yeah. New high score.”

 

The phone let out a few pleasant beeps and Bruce rose at the sound. He stretched for a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to be representing Tony tonight?”

 

“Yeah, in like an hour. I’ve got time.”

 

Bruce just shook his head and left, the sounds of technology wafting after him.

 

He found his way to the lab where Tony greeted him with a distracted kiss and a statement about self-contained ion blasts. Bruce knew he’d come at a good time, and managed to talk Tony out of a number of suit modifications that would have killed him. He was balancing the chest plate, his mind running through calculations while Tony worked on it with a wrench, when his mouth spoke without consulting him first.

 

“I met my double.”

 

Tony glanced up at him from beneath the chest plate, confused. Bruce watched as the words caught up with him. He could practically see Tony struggling to empty his mind of numbers and technology enough to actually hear what Bruce was saying. “Your double?”

 

“My double, Tony.”

 

“Oh. Oh!” He brightened considerably and sat up, casting aside the wrench and relieving Bruce of the chest plate. “Bruce, that’s fantastic! What’s he like? Is he smart like you? You know, I’m not going to lie. I was considering starting a search. We can’t keep you under wraps forever; mind like yours needs to be free. But if you’ve met him already then—wait. He’s not an asshole, is he?” Tony leaned in, his concern matching what Bruce felt.

 

“No.” Bruce was wringing his hands again. “I don’t think so, anyway. We only spoke for a bit. This was a few weeks ago.”

 

“You haven’t spoken to him since?”

 

“No. I know how to contact him, if I want.” He didn’t say that Paul could contact him back. He wasn’t sure what Tony would do with that information.

 

Tony seemed to consider his words for a minute. “Well, then we should go meet him.” He began to wander around the lab, putting a few things away here and there and locating a towel. Bruce watched as he wiped the grease from his fingertips. “What’d you say his name was?”

 

“Paul. Tony, are you sure this is a good idea?”

 

Bruce wavered there for a moment as Tony turned to look at him. He was still rubbing his hands absently with the towel, his gaze mild and pleasant. “Why wouldn’t it be? It is one of my ideas.”

 

“I’m not exactly a normal person. He didn’t sign up for the Hulk, or any of this.”

 

“Bruce, you worry too much.” He ambled over and threw his arm around Bruce’s shoulders. “We just need to get this guy on the payroll. I know you hate social gatherings. If we have him in our back pocket we can make him go to all your events.”

 

“Like Lars?”

 

“Exactly like that.” Tony poked him in the chest. Bruce had to roll his eyes. “Only, hopefully he isn’t a high school drop out with no dreams or desires.”

 

Tony continued like that, chatting as they dressed, leading him to the car. He opened the door and was a perfect gentleman, and it was only when they arrived at the restaurant that Bruce realized he’d never actually told Tony where they were going.

 

*

 

“I saw him once.”

 

It took Bruce an embarrassingly long moment to realize that Steve was talking to him. They were both sitting off to the side, watching as their team engaged in some sort of drinking game that involved Clint struggling to teach Tony to juggle while Natasha and Thor laughed. He and Steve were slightly left out of the proceedings, unwilling or unable to actually drink.

 

“Who?”

 

Steve didn’t answer right away. He took a long, slow sip of his beer. Even though he couldn’t get drunk he was still giving it the old college try here, tucked into a corner with Bruce. “It was in Germany,” he said after a moment, as if that was an answer. “I was just walking with my buddies when I saw him.

 

Bruce watched him for a long moment, the silence stretching not uncomfortably between them. He leaned back in his chair and waited for Steve to continue.

 

“He was on the other side of the street,” Steve said after a moment. His eyes were on Clint, who was carefully directing Tony to hold his wrists this way and that way, to throw the objects without fear. “I still remember what he was wearing, too. It was a black shirt. Looked good on him. He caught me staring, but I don’t think he realized.

 

Steve sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. The bottle found its way to the pile on the floor, and Steve opened another. “Probably because by that point, I didn’t look like him anymore.” He gestured down at himself derisively. “He was so small. He looked angry when he saw me. I always wondered if he realized…”

 

He trailed off after a moment. Bruce watched him carefully, seeing the harsh lines of his shoulders as he tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. It always struck Bruce as odd, that Steve was the youngest of their group. He always held himself as if he had the weight of all one-hundred years on his shoulders.

 

“You didn’t say anything?”

 

“No.” Steve stood up and drained the last of his beer. “He’s probably dead now, anyway.”

 

He cast the bottle aside and swaggered over to join the festivities. If Bruce hadn’t known to look, he would have thought the Captain’s smile genuine.

 

*

 

Sometimes, they made love under the stars.

 

It was really the only time that Bruce could call what they did _making love_. When the two of them found themselves sitting out on the terrace, the harsh city lights blocking all but a handful of stars. Bruce could still trace a few of the constellations here and there. When he thought Tony was up to it, he would point them out. They would lie shoulder to shoulder and Bruce would take Tony’s hand in his own, raising it up to point at the outline of Orion, brush against the rabbit beneath the hunter’s feet, before rising up to the sword clutched in the star-man’s hands.

 

When they were like that, Tony would look over at him with such a soft expression of trust that Bruce didn’t even feel like running.

 

The terrace was the highest point on the Tower. It meant the wind always whipped away body heat. That was usually Tony’s initial excuse for cuddling up with him, for drawing Bruce close to him, for running his hands over Bruce’s body and beneath his shirt. Sometimes, Bruce would laugh and say that if Tony was cold, then taking off clothes wouldn’t help. Other times, all he could do was gaze back at the whirl of chaos behind Tony’s eyes.

 

When they kissed it wasn’t electric—electric meant pain meant rage meant anger. When they kissed it was like a balm, soft and soothing and cool. And Bruce preferred it that way.

 

*

 

He didn’t quite realize it was happening, but at some point Paul began to worm his way into Bruce’s life with Tony.

 

It started with weekly dinners. First, they were at Paul’s restaurant and for all its hippy food and strange veganism, Tony seemed to enjoy it. Eventually the three of them graduated to Paul’s kitchen at his tiny apartment. Bruce and Paul would wander the expanse of his community garden beforehand, touching the swell of a tomato here, the crisp of a bean there, and gathering it up together.

 

“I used to live in California,” Paul said to them one evening, glancing between them like it should mean something. Tony just smirked and downed a swirl of red wine. Bruce had smiled back.

 

“I haven’t been there in a while. What’s it like?”

 

Paul told them little stories, then. Of hot sand and huge open spaces, unmarred by skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. Bruce found himself daydreaming about it, remembering what it was like to live in a place where cement didn’t cling to him like air. Paul told them of his little restaurant there, of how wonderfully it had grown. Bruce must have missed a transition somehow, because then Paul was telling them about moving across the country—from one end to the other—to settle in New York and start again.

 

His life was quiet and solitary, which was probably why Tony invited him to drop by Stark Tower some time.

 

After a battle so bad the Other Guy had to make an appearance for the first time in six months, Paul did.

 

Natasha found him first, which explained why Paul was so terrified by the time Bruce made his way to the lobby. He found Paul sitting on a bench, wringing his fingers together and trying to look anywhere but at the hovering, dangerous Natasha.

 

She glanced up with Bruce entered. Her cool gaze followed him as he walked across the great expanse of the lobby. She locked eyes with him and jerked her head at Paul, and Bruce didn’t have to be a genius to figure out the intention behind her eyes.

 

“It’s fine. He’s a guest.”

 

Natasha disappeared like a whisper in a crowded room as Bruce gave him the grand tour. The moved up and down and entered elevators and labs and rooms until Paul was comfortable enough to say why he’d actually come.

 

“So, you kind of wrecked my restaurant.”

 

Bruce was confused. He blinked for a moment. “You mean it was wrecked in the last attack?”

 

“No, I mean you fell on it. Like, the Hulk did.”

 

Bruce tried not to let panic show on his face. He hadn’t told Paul of his alter ego. He’d done everything he could _not_ to let that little anecdote slip out. As far as the world knew the Hulk didn’t even have a human half, but here was his double speaking about it so nonchalantly.

 

“How…?”

 

“You hang out with Tony Stark and the rest of the Avengers like it’s nothing.” Paul shrugged. He was smiling, but it didn’t put Bruce at ease. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was a secret. I was wondering if there was a city fund or something I could apply to, to help me rebuild.”

 

“Tony and I will take care of it,” Bruce said quickly. “Look, Paul, you can’t tell anyone about this. About the other—about the Hulk.”

 

Paul just shrugged. The smile he offered Bruce was a little sad. It was one Bruce recognized well from his own mirror. “Who would I tell?”

 

Tony paid to have the restaurant rebuilt, and Paul started coming over more often.

 

*

 

“I take care of mine,” Natasha said in between a quick jab of her elbow and a swift swing of her foot.

 

Bruce dodged one, blocked the other, and stared down at her, panting. Natasha was like a willow branch in the wind, flowing and flexing and snapping at him as they sparred in the lonely gym. “What?” Bruce managed between desperate lungful’s of air.

 

“My double,” she explained. She paused a moment to adjust his fighting stance and went on. “She’s so mild-mannered that it’s frankly insulting. But she looks like me, and can’t hide the fact that she looks like me as well as I can.” She shrugged. “So I protect her without her knowing.”

 

“Why are you telling me this?” He managed to glance a blow off her shoulder. She took advantage of it and flipped him around, driving him hard into the ground. She jumped off him and offered him a hand up.

 

“Paul’s been visiting more. Everyone seems to like him. But you have to realize that in your line of work, he’s going to be in danger.”

 

“He’s always been in danger.” The rest hung unspoken in the air, mute descriptions of Ross and SHIELD and weapons from the sky.

 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But now he’s your responsibility.”

 

They went back to fighting.

 

*

 

“What do you think? Pretty good, huh?”

 

Tony threw open his arms at the great expanse of greenery on what had once been the terrace of Stark Tower. He had his sunglasses on, his suit coat fluttering lightly in the wind, and Bruce was suddenly struck with the image of a younger Tony Stark using this kind of flamboyance to show off his weapons designs.

 

Paul let out a low whistle. “This is… really nice.”

 

And it was. All around them were plants of all different kinds. Here and there squash and cucumbers barely poking their heads from the soil. In one corner, kale already standing at knee height. A tomato plant wafting its scent across the roof. Corn reaching up and desiring for the sun.

 

“Your community garden was depressing,” Tony said with another sweep of his arms. One hand came down to rest on the small of Paul’s back as he showed him around the garden, Bruce trailing behind.

 

Bruce ran a thumb over the edge of a leaf, bent down to pluck a stray blade of grass. He stood and saw Paul smiling over at him, looking a little lost as Tony expounded on his high-tech irrigation system. Bruce smiled back.

 

That night, Paul cooked for the team. Fresh garden kale with spicy vinaigrette, stuffed portabella mushrooms resting in a cream sauce, and fine fresh fruit with just a taste of honey. Thor regaled them with a tale of high heroics. Paul and Steve exchanged light banter about subsistence farming. Clint cut in with his normal biting commentary, Natasha rolling her eyes in his wake. And Tony sat with his hand in Bruce’s, gently rubbing his skin with his thumb.

 

It was beautiful and kind, and it made Bruce feel like running again.

 

*

 

He did run. But it was only for three days, down to the docks where he put on a dusty cap and threw crates for a while to scrape together enough funds to sleep in a dry motel bed.

 

On the evening of the third day he rode the elevator back up to Tony’s penthouse suite. He had his backpack on his shoulder, and was planning on telling Tony that he didn’t intend to leave again, but when he stepped through the door and saw Paul kissing him he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

 

He stood there for a moment, staring. It was like being on the outside looking in. He wondered if this was what others would see if he kissed Tony. If they would see his hands on Tony’s face, framing it with great broad fingers. If they would see the press of stubble and whiskers where pink lips met. If they would see his eyes closed, and Tony’s eyes open in confusion.

 

Maybe that was what made him stay. That confusion. And the way Tony was standing, not quite leaning in, but not quite pulling away. Not exactly returning the kiss but not pushing Paul off, either. And when Tony looked over at him, brow furrowed, Bruce let them finish the kiss.

 

He knew Tony hadn’t been confused about who he was kissing. There was no mistaking Paul for Bruce.

 

When they pulled apart there was a wet pop. Bruce could see the tip of Tony’s tongue disappearing, and it made him shiver. Paul couldn’t see him the way they were angled, but Tony could. Tony stared right at him as if he was trying to make sense of the world.

 

Then Paul turned, and Bruce saw the pure panic on his face. Bruce set his pack aside and began to walk over.

 

Paul dropped his grip on Tony’s face and took a step back. Bruce noted the way Tony leaned in for a second before straightening, biting his lower lip. Bruce probably should have been upset, should have been furious at Tony for never doing the right thing. He should have been angry that Tony used mouth and lips and sex to fix his problems.

 

But then, Bruce should never have talked to Paul, either.

 

Bruce reached down and grasped Tony’s hand in his own, reassuring. He stared at Tony for a long moment, watching the way his eyebrows knit and unknit. He could tell Tony desperately wanted to say something, but for once he was uncharacteristically silent. After a moment, Bruce glanced to his side to where Paul was swaying.

 

Paul had his arms around his stomach, clutching at himself. He looked sick. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” he said to open air, his eyes unfocused, not really looking at either of them. “I’m sorry. I should just—”

 

He froze as Bruce reached out and took his hand, entangling their fingers together. He thought, then, as he held Tony and Paul so close to him, that their hands fit perfectly together.

 

*

 

It was much easier to make love with Tony when he had four hands instead of two.

 

He thought about this as he ran his hands over Tony’s hip bone, catching his hissing exhalation in a kiss. He was unafraid as he placed his hands everywhere. On his left shoulder, a space on his chest below the reactor, the patch of hair above his waist, the dimple behind his knee. Tony shivered and hitched beneath him—beneath _them_ , if he was honest.

 

When they lay there together afterwards, one on either side of Tony, catching their breath, he noticed that Paul was still uncertain. He could see Paul clinging to Tony the way Bruce did. Like he might slip through his fingers at a moment’s notice. Disappear without a trace.

 

Tony leaned down, and Bruce tipped his head up to meet that kiss. It was slow and languid and reassuring, and when Tony pulled back he saw only love in his eyes. He felt no jealousy as Tony turned and placed another kiss atop Paul’s still head. He began to run his fingers through Paul’s hair, and Bruce noted that his hair was growing longer now. Not as long as his own, but the delicate curls had more definition, more strength.

 

Paul seemed to make himself smaller as Tony slid a hand over his head, curls twisting and turning beneath his touch. Bruce hated that look, and so he reached out as well, entangled his own hand in Paul’s hair, matching Tony’s touch. When Paul screwed his eyes shut, they didn’t say anything. When he let out a broken shudder, they stayed silent. Just feeling, holding, touching and touched.

 

*

 

“Can I be a part of your family?” Paul asked him one day over sizzling eggs and sliced red pepper.

 

Bruce smiled back. “You already are.”

 

 


End file.
